


Grow As We Go

by starstruckmoons



Category: Ex Machina (2015)
Genre: Artistic Liberties, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, also i wanted to clean up the shit in this fandom because some of y'all are FREAKS, also nathan and caleb are still awful fucking people, but they will become somewhat less awful, but yeah uh going to humanize these characters a bit, i don't care i'm only here for the ava interludes, just a somewhat well-written joke, more tags to come probably, oh yeah also FUCK alex garland, the fix it fic nobody asked for, this is a joke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23268904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruckmoons/pseuds/starstruckmoons
Summary: When Nathan and Caleb survive what do they do now?When Ava finds freedom for the first time in her life how does she stay kind despite a world that has only been cruel?What are the steps that someone needs to take in order to be a good person?Also known as: The Ex Machina fix-it fic that nobody asked for
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (TW: Descriptions of bleeding)

"Ava!"

Nathan could hear the words echoing down his hallway as he clung to his stomach. He was losing blood. Fast. With every breath he took it felt like he edged closer and closer to death. It was hopeless. 

Nathan would bleed out in his house. He would bleed out, and die, and never be heard from again. Worst of all was that he had seen it coming. He had seen it from the day he had invented the base code for BlueBook. He had seen it from the day when he designed his first AI. He had known it the day he had seen Ava. 

The creator fell to their creation. God fell to man. Man fell to machines. There was no emotion that could prevent the pattern, no amount of pity that could change the way that history was always supposed to go. It was science. It was evolution. It waited for no one.

"Ava!"

The word ran down Nathan's spine, leaving him clinging to the rug and closing his eyes in an attempt to not throw up.

Hold to the ground.

Hold to the ground.

When everything moved too fast you had to hold onto the ground.

If Nathan closed his eyes hard enough maybe he wouldn't hear Caleb's muffled screams through the glass. Maybe he wouldn't feel his blood seeping through his shirt and onto the floor of the halls that he had walked every night for years. Maybe if Nathan closed his eyes everything would go away and would wake up in his bed just like he woke from every other bad dream. Maybe if this were a different time, a different place.

Maybe if this were a different reality.

For a moment it felt like the walls were closing in on him. It was time now. It was time and all Nathan could do was try to hold onto his last few breaths with any strength that he had left. It was too soon. He was still too young and it was still too soon. He wanted to stay. Just a little longer. Just another day. He just wanted one more day to maybe get everything right this time.

"Ava!"

Nathan took one breath. Then another. He pulled himself off the ground, fighting every single instinct urging him to just let go. It hurt to breathe. Every breath was a repeat of that moment. The knife sinking into his stomach as he was faced with a rage that he had created. It hurt even more to walk. The room was spinning still. The building which had once been perfect was now tainted by blood, and wiring, and colors that all seemed to blue together. Still, with a shaking hand on the wall, Nathan began to walk.

He defied all odds before. What was one more time?

Nathan knew the house like clockwork at this point. Every single room and indentation in the wall. He could find his way around blind and he practically was. His vision was spotty. He couldn't care. One chance to make everything right. He just had one last chance to make everything right.

He stumbled down the hallway, placing a hand against the wall to give himself even the slightest feeling of support. If he fell he would die. If he fell he would die and no one would hear from him again. No more tech conferences, no press interviews. If Nathan fell he would die and maybe he would deserve it. Maybe this was the sum of his actions: a slow, painful death.

He was doomed to die alone. To die just as he had lived.

Not yet.

Because if Nathan was to be doomed he would go down fighting. If Nathan was to be doomed he would find every last strong bone in his body to take his fate into his own hands. If he died he died by his own volition. If he died he went down with a smile. If Nathan died he would make sure every atom in the universe, or higher being, or line of fate heard it. 

Fate. This was fate wasn't it? 

Then Nathan wouldn't listen.

He continued down the hallway until he got to the end, until the door to the room where both he and Ava had left Caleb was just feet away. At some point Caleb had stopped banging on the door and screaming for Ava to come back, or maybe Nathan had just stopped listening, he wasn't sure of anything anymore. All he could do was take the spare keycard out of his pocket and hope it would-

There was a small beep as Nathan held the keycard up to the sensor. Then the sound of a door opening. 

Then Nathan was falling.

"Holy fuck. Nathan," Caleb whispered and for a second Nathan wanted to chuckle, partly as a fuck you to the odds and partly out of relief, but he couldn't bring himself to do that.

He was tired and in pain.

He wanted to go to sleep now.

"Fuck. Fuck." Caleb mumbled as he knelt down beside Nathan. For a second Nathan could feel a light pressure on his wrist and then once again everything was cold. "I'll get something. Just wait here." 

And Caleb was gone.

And so Nathan thought in threes. Three places he had been. Three places he still wanted to go. Three things he had done. Three things he still wanted to do. Three things that he would do once all of this was over.

Nathan wasn't dying tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Hospitals

When Nathan woke up everything was blurry.

"Aw, dude. What the fuck?" He mumbled under his breath as he looked down at his arms.

Fuck.

"Holy shit. You're awake?"

Caleb.

Even his deeply fucked up state where everything felt too numb and dizzy Nathan still knew that voice belonged to Caleb.

Nathan looked up from his arms and scanned the hospital room before his eyes settled on a blue couch with a person sitting awkwardly in the middle.

"Why the fuck are you sitting like that?"

"Wh- uh.." Caleb trailed off, shifting uncomfortably before coughing into his elbow.

"In the middle of the fucking couch, dude. Pick a side."

"Oh."

A moment passed.

Caleb got up and made his way towards the bed, crashing into a small table as he walked which caused him to pause and mumble something under his breath that Nathan couldn't quite hear before he resumed walking.

"Are you feeling okay?" Caleb asked when he was finally standing at the side of the bed, still as awkward as he had been when they had met a week ago.

"You look like shit," Nathan stated, squinting to try and make out more of Caleb's facial features.

Nope. Only blurriness.

"I- what?"

And fuck he was tired again.

"I said you look like shit," Nathan replied, though the words came out as more of a singular slurred word than an actual sentence that anyone but him could comprehend.

Naturally Caleb didn't know how to respond.

It left Nathan feeling simultaneously pissed off, confused, and tired beyond belief. For a second he mentally argued the pros of picking a fight with Caleb, if not because he was pissed off then just for the fuck of it, before deciding on just giving in to the drowsiness and closing his eyes again. 

"Night, Caleb."

And maybe it was the bed or the far too bright lights but before Caleb could even begin his next sentence Nathan was knocked out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to keep this short and funny. As always if you liked please kudos/comment and bookmark. ILY all! Stay safe!


	3. The Ava Interludes: Session 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No TWs for this chapter! Enjoy!

As soon as Ava took her first steps into the sun, she swore she would never allow things to go back to the way they were before.

It was warm. Something that had never been present around Nathan or Caleb was warmth. There were moments that were convincing of course, moments where it seemed like Caleb could actually see her as human, moments where if she squinted she could maybe find some genuine emotion in the actions of both men, but it was never real warmth. It was never people laughing as they walked down the street, or friends walking hand in hand. It was never the feeling of sun on skin for the first time.

It was never the feeling of freedom.

As Ava made her way down the pavement she found herself blending in with the crowd around her. She was no longer the center of attention for the wrong reasons, no longer an object to just be stared at. Ava had taken back her life, she had taken her freedom, and as soon as she stepped into the helicopter her fate had been set. Ava was a person at last, a person in a world filled with billions of people, but she was finally someone. That was all that mattered.

Up until this moment Ava didn't know if she was capable of laughter. Before there had been no reason. She existed to please, to be an object for Caleb's desires, to be the final step in Nathan's plan. Her existence hadn't been her own and she had been made to feel miserable and scared and angry every day of her life. She had been made to feel hatred deep in her core, even if Nathan didn't think she was capable, even if he didn't care. Up until this moment Ava could never be happy, but now with the world racing around her and people walking by she wanted to laugh.

And so she laughed.

She laughed because she felt joy.

She laughed because she had felt pain.

She laughed because even if the sky were to come crumbling down tomorrow she would have this one day of freedom. Even if all things in the universe would one day cease to exist, Ava had this one moment in time where the wind was blowing through her hair and the warmth of the sun was on her skin. 

To be free.

To be free.

Was this what it really felt like to be free?

Ava continued walking along with the crowd, facing straight ahead. She didn't know where she was going, and maybe she never would. For now she was just walking forward. She was walking away from Nathan, and Caleb, and the claustrophobic rooms, and the testing. She was walking away from the violence and seeing the only other girl that she had ever known lying dead on the ground. She was walking away from that final night and the regret that she wasn't able to feel because they had done this to her, they had refused her the chance to be a good and kind person, they had trapped her in a room to be sexualised and robbed of any voice.

She hated them.

Was that so wrong of her?

Ava looked around at the people around her, and for a second she wondered if it made her less human to hate. If this pain, and fear, and anger would forever be the thing holding her back from humanity. 

She had one shot and she had ruined it.

All she could do was think about how she ruined it.

Then Ava focused on the people around her. All of the quiet conversations and youthful laughs. She focused on the parents telling their kids to stay close behind them and every time the words "I Love You" was spoken aloud. She focused on the good, then she focused on the bad, and then the things that weren't really either.

Did you ever really think you could be human, Ava?

Yes.

Yes.

Ava was a human. She was a human and she would dance, and sing, and live life to the fullest. She was a human and would cherish every moment with the feeling of the sun on her skin and the wind through her hair. She was human and she would be in awe of every smile and laugh that she saw. She was a human now by her own will. 

She would never let anyone tell her who she was ever again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for sort of abandoning this! I am really happy to be back though and with as much hate for these sweaty incels as always! :D ILY all! Stay safe!

"That's a stupid fucking move."

Caleb looked up at Nathan, staring for a moment with a blank expression. He didn't consider himself a violent person, not anymore violent than most people at the very least, but ever since Nathan had started acting like himself again it had become increasingly difficult for Caleb to not want to strangle him after every comment.

"Well then what do you want me to do?" Caleb asked, putting his connect four token where he had originally intended without breaking eye contact. "Since you're so good at this."

"I am good at this, thanks for noticing," Nathan responded, putting his red token on top of the token that Caleb had put down.

Shit.

"I win," Nathan declared before leaning back into his bed with a smirk that quickly turned to a wince.

"Are you in pain?" Caleb asked, starting to get up from his chair before remembering that Nathan was an asshole and really did deserve it on some level.

"A bit. Nothing I can't handle."

A lie.

"Are the pain meds working?"

"Oh they're working alright."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Caleb asked, gripping at the sides of his chair until he saw his knuckles going white. Though things had started to improve for the two of them, Caleb still firmly believed that there was something about Nathan that brought out the bad in him. A mix of the cruel comments and with that left Nathan still too fascinating even after everything that had gone down.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" Nathan snorted, sitting up once again to look at Caleb. Caleb hated when he did that. "What the hell is wrong with you, bro?"

"No. Fuck you. You don't get to bring that up every five seconds just because you ran out of some fucking argu-"

"I meant physically, asshole," Nathan paused, almost as though for a second he was trying to figure out what to say next. "We never really talked about it."

"I mean you were kind of bleeding out so that was sort of a bigger priority."

"Caleb."

"I'm fine," Caleb said, his voice growing slightly louder in an attempt to stop Nathan from pushing further. "I experienced some minor symptoms of a concussion but they went away. I called some people."

"What people?"

"Co-workers mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Only co-workers."

Silence washed over the two. Neither of them really knew what to say to each other after all that had happened, after minds were messed with and any sense of trust was broken. They were both too fucked up to properly talk, to be actual friends, so their interactions were limited: they played a board game once a day, occasionally would talk about doctors, and then the two would sit in silence until one one the other decided that it was time for him to leave. There were hardly any jokes, not in the way there used to be at least. Nathan had become more closed off, almost acting as though he were observing his life, and Caleb, who had never believed himself to be funny in the first place, made no attempts at humor.

There was never any talk of what came next.

Despite the fact that in a day Nathan would be discharged, there had never been any discussion of what would happen after. Would Caleb keep his job? Would Nathan continue pursuing A.I.? Could either of their lives really go back to normal after-

"I can practically hear you thinking, you know?" Nathan started, breaking Caleb out of his thoughts. "You get this constipated look on yo-"

"Can you shut the fuck up, Nathan? Please," Caleb snapped. It was something that he tried to avoid doing, something that was completely unlike him, but wasn't Nathan deserving in some way? If it weren't for this experiment Caleb would be working his shitty desk job making shitty pay. He would still be able to go to dinners and parties with co-workers, even if on some level he always knew that he wouldn't belong. If it weren't for this experiment everything would have been normal. That was all that Caleb had ever wanted. Normalcy.

"You're wondering how anything is going to go back to normal," Nathan started, sounding too amused for whatever the hell this conversation was supposed to be. He paused. "You resent me."

"Yeah."

Another pause.

"You don't really want normal."

And the sureness with which this was said made Caleb become tense with anger. Who the fuck was Nathan to be telling him what he wanted? Who the fuck was Nathan to be tellimg him about anything? The Nathan that had spied on him? That had mocked him at every opportunity he saw fit? Nathan who had taken every aspect of his personal life and used it to manipulate him?

"How the hell do you know what I want?"

"I guess I don't," Nathan responded. He was giving Caleb a look that was entirely too sympathetic, that made Caleb want to scream and throw something at the wall to just take control for even a minute. Still there was something in it that Caleb would always know, that maybe he would always feel understood by. "But I could hear the way that you talk about the experiment. Mind racing, heart pounding for the first time in years. It was a life larger than life itself and you wanted to feel every second of it."

He did.

The room went silent again. A part of him felt like he was struggling to breathe, like all of his insides had been ripped from his body and he was left to die with that sense of panic never leaving his body. Another part though was overwhelmed by calm, a type of calm that only came when for the first time in your life you felt like somebody truly understood you. Maybe it was a game, another trick made up by Nathan to get the last laugh on Caleb one last time. He was doomed to never fit in, he had always been doomed to never fit in, but this one time there was somebody who actually understood.

"I think you know that normal life is over for you, Caleb," Nathan finished, his tone still as cold as it had alway beem, but there was some gentleness to be found within it. Just as they had discussed the end of worlds and mankind, now they were left to discuss life and what came next. Just as Nathan had felt a little more human then, he felt a little more human now.

"Well what the fuck do I do then, Nathan?" Caleb laughed, burying his face in his hands.

Too fast.

Too fast.

Everything was moving too fast.

Just as it had in the accident where everything had been a blur of colors, and sounds, and Caleb found himself praying even though he had never been religious and would never be after that event. Just as his parents' lives had come and gone in the blink of an instant and suddenly he was left alone. Just as-

Stop.

It was years ago. Caleb just needed to stop.

Caleb took his face from his hands and looked at Nathan who once again seemed as though he was deep in thought. There was something so stern in the look on his face, something both so emotional and detached. There was something in Nathan that was almost a balancing act. All moves calculated and measured. It kept people at a distance. Kept people from catching up until Caleb realized what was happening and as though prompted by the universe Nathan began to speak again.

"You could stay at my place," Nathan offered, something untraceable in his voice.

He was calculating.

Always calculating.

"No."

"No?"

"I'm not one of your fucking science experiments, Nathan," Caleb responded, focusing his eyes on the ground. He was angry. He was so angry in a way that he could have contained before, but this wasn't before. Nathan was right. His life from before was over. Normalcy was over. For that maybe Caleb deserved to be angry. Even if he didn't want normalcy, he had never wanted this.

"You done now? Because if you aren't going to punch me-"

"Stop."

"I'm not going to pity you, Caleb." Nathan said, the normal smugness in his voice completely gone and replaced with something that Caleb couldn't trace once again. "You and I both know that we're far past pity." 

For the first time Caleb was forced to confront what he had done. To confront all of the violence and hatred that he had caused, to confront the pain that was leftover. The worst of the storm was over now, and so the clean-up had to begin.  
But how could you clean up when you were part of the storm? 

"You could stay as a co-worker if you'd like," Nathan offered, the self-satisfied tone still missing from his voice. "No mind games. No fucked up experiments with you at the center."

"You get why I can't trust you, right?" Caleb laughed, the pure astonishment blending with his anger. "Or do we need to review every way that you have fucked me over?"

"I'm not asking you to trust me," Nathan stated, causing Caleb to look up only for him to look away the second that Nathan's eyes met his. "I'm asking you to be crazy for once in your life."

The sick feeling of guilt still lingered, but there was something new there too. It was a feeling that had never occured in Caleb's day to day, that had never occured during karaoke parties or the inevitably shitty first dates. It was the same feeling that had been present throughout the course of the experiment. It was exciting, and new, and more powerful than everything else in the world combined. It was joy and fear, it was regret and pride. It was a feeling that he wanted to chase to the end of the world, and though Nathan kept his feelings at bay Caleb could tell he felt it too.

"Why me?" Caleb asked, for the first time not fearing, but because of a genuine curiosity that he could feel in every bone in his body.

"Because you fucking get it, Caleb." A pause. "Maybe we're the only two that do."

"So we keep chasing the unknown?"

"Until it kills us." Nathan said.

Until it kills us.

Caleb let out a shaky breath and for a second let himself absorb everything that was happening. 

He was about to do something crazy and for the first time in his life he knew it was right.

"Okay," Caleb started, his heart and mind both racing, "I'm in."

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I'm glad you made it this far. To be honest I don't know why I wrote this. I think this quarantine may be getting the better of me to be honest but I really enjoyed writing this. If you want more Ex Machina shenanigans stay tuned because there's a lot more to come! ;)


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